What Do I Want for My Birthday?
by deannaG
Summary: Max is turning 20 in a few weeks and his fathers are waiting to find out what he wants. Max Grows Up in the Rune Series part 24.


This is an idea that popped into my head. A short little story with a lot of callbacks to other fanfics.

Enjoy.

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Max sits at the kitchen table. His homework is done and he's staring at a textbook, waiting to get sleepy. He's supposed to be studying but he already knows the material backwards and forwards. Possibly diagonally as well. His twentieth birthday is in three weeks and his fathers want to know what he wants. Max turns a few pages as he thinks.

Even as a child, he wasn't interested in material things. Poppa says that he would watch Max as commercials were on the television and nothing captured Max's attention. Max had toys, but he played with them for a while then moved on to something else, which was usually drawing runes.

Until he was five, and Daddy bought his laptop to the loft. Poppa was mad that he was bringing work home. He and Daddy were talking and didn't realize that Max was staring at the laptop, sitting on the kitchen table, with a smile on his face. Max was taught not to touch things that weren't his, so all he did was stare at it.

Daddy noticed how quiet Max had gotten. When he saw what Max was looking at, he glanced at Poppa. Without a word they smiled at each other and nodded. Daddy sat down and worked on the laptop as Poppa and Max baked cookies.

The next day, Daddy came home with a box from Best Buy. Max's first laptop.

Max giggles quietly as he remembers his father showing him how to use it. Sadly that laptop froze when he was ten and Daddy had to get him another one. Max smiles as he recalls Daddy helping him come up with a password for the new laptop.

Runes and his laptop, the two things Max cares a lot about.

Other than Daddy and Poppa of course. Max glances at the sofa. Poppa is watching tv and Daddy is laying on the sofa, his head resting on Poppa's leg. His eyes are closed but Max knows from experience that doesn't mean his Daddy is sleeping. Poppa is twirling a lock of Daddy's hair around his finger.

Max smiles, his fathers are so soft. Not for the first time, does he wish he had been at their wedding. Max remembers something Aunt Clary said at their 20th anniversary party, that Daddy was going to marry a lady. Max shakes his head at how crazy that sounds.

Max smiles as he remembers going back in time to save Daddy when he was thirteen. The best part of that, for lack of a better word, adventure, was seeing Poppa's reaction as he saw young Daddy for the first time. Max had heard the story many times, but to actually see it happen before his own eyes was awesome.

Max grins at how wonderful it would be to go back in time and see all the monumental moments in his fathers' relationship.

The first time they looked at each other.

Daddy's first wedding being crashed by Poppa.

Poppa proposing to Daddy.

Their wedding.

Max glances at the Keurig machine and smiles. He knows that because of Daddy it's here, but how?

So many stories he has heard over the years, that he would love to see happen.

Max sits up straight and his eyes widen as an idea comes to mind.

Poppa opened the portal that allowed him to save Daddy, but what if he wrote a program that did the same thing? A program that allowed him to open portals to his fathers' past and see important moments with a word or two.

Max closes the textbook and reaches for his notebook. He turns to the back and grabs a pencil.

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Nine days later, the program is done. He also wrote a mini program that allows him to portal within that time from moment to moment. Max runs both programs on his laptop using moments from his own childhood to see how it works.

It takes him three days to get all the bugs fixed. Once it works perfectly, he resets it to start at Daddy's birth to the present.

Now all he needs is permission from his fathers' to visit their past. That is what he wants for his birthday in nine days. Their permission.

_**the end**_

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Which leads into **Max's Birthday Present**, the first story of **Max's Adventures thru the Rune Series**.

And now I'm going to work on Max getting his first laptop. :D


End file.
